


The Struggle

by quentin_speaks



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, fear of needles, ftm!Virgil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 12:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentin_speaks/pseuds/quentin_speaks
Summary: Virgil is having a hard time doing his shot. His boyfriend wants to be there to help him.





	The Struggle

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote a few months ago but never got around to posting, hope you like it!

I’d been sitting there for nearly an hour and a half listening to the same few Cavetown songs over and over while I tried so desperately to do my shot. I’d been doing this for more than half of a year already and yet somehow my anxiety surrounding it hadn’t lessened at all. I’d never messed it up or had a single problem, but still, I just knew that this was the time I was going to completely fuck it up.

I had the syringe filled, I had the area sanitized, re-sanitized, and re-re-re-sanitized just for good measure. I’d washed my hands and re-washed my hands and scrubbed them down with hand sanitizer twice, and yet I couldn’t get my mind off of the possibilities. What about infection? What about injecting into the wrong place? What about accidentally injecting an air bubble? What if I injected directly into a vein or a blood vessel? What if, what if, what if…

I must’ve listened to Banana Bread at least six times by this point but I just couldn’t seem to stop worrying, even though it usually calmed me back down. I’d even deviated a little and listened to a couple of Conan Gray songs, hoping that something would help to get my heart rate back down and get my hands to stop shaking, but to no avail.

It hadn’t always been this bad, in the beginning, I could power through it like it was nothing, but the longer I did it, the more weeks that grew between that first shot and my current point in time, the harder it got. Who was I supposed to talk to? What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t like I could just call someone and be like “Hey so I’m freaking out over something I do all the time and I know it’s 1:30 in the morning but I need you to tell me to shut the fuck up and just do it.” No, instead I just sat listening to the same songs over and over, and looking for a solution I knew I wasn’t going to be finding on my own tonight.

Or at least that was until my phone started ringing and I realized that Logan was trying to FaceTime me. I almost didn’t answer, but didn’t want to worry him by ignoring it.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“I just wanted to check on you, I sent you a message an hour ago and you hadn’t responded, I know you don’t normally sleep until around 3 and it’s not like you not to answer,” he said. His face was concerned, but only ever so slightly. Logan was surprisingly good with keeping his facial expressions almost unreadable.

“I’m fine,” I said, “Just been busy, that’s all.”

Logan raised an eyebrow, seeing through my obvious lie. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

I sighed, looking down towards my shot. I didn’t really want to tell him that I was struggling so badly, but honestly, I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own. “I’m just having some trouble with my shot tonight, I can’t do it, my brain won’t shut up long enough to let me.”

He seemed to think for a moment, like he wasn’t entirely sure what the appropriate response was. “Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I’m fine, really, don’t worry about me,” I said. I didn’t want him driving all the way out here in the middle of the night. He probably didn’t have time for this tonight anyway.

“Virgil, let me help you. I’m gonna put my shoes on I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I tried to argue, but Logan had already hung up the phone. Guess that’s settled, I thought. Having Logan over wasn’t an awful thing, I just didn’t want to inconvenience him. I’d been so afraid since we started dating that I was going to get on his nerves and he’d just head for the hills, or that I’d do something to make him mad. Adding all of this into the mix didn’t seem like a great idea if I wanted to actually keep him around, which I really, really did.

It wasn’t long before I heard Logan’s distinct knock on the door, and I walked very slowly over to open it, pretending like I was busy, like I wasn’t just waiting for him to knock. All of that was a bald-faced lie, of course.

He smiled and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, which gave me the feeling of tiny butterflies in my stomach trying to escape. “You really should clean up a little in here,” he said. “At some point you do actually have to wash your clothes, you know.”

“Most of these are clean,” I said, “See this is the clean pile,” I gestured to the slightly larger pile of clothes on the right, “and the rest are the dirty ones.”

His smile was priceless, and made me start to fall for him all over again. “Why don’t we see about getting you a basket for each. Small steps, right?”

He walked into the kitchen and sat his laptop bag down, and took a seat at the table. He seemed to fit so well with everything, taking up just the right amount of space, never more. Everything about him amazed me a little, and yet somehow he wanted to be with me. I honestly didn’t know what I’d done to deserve him.

“What’s been going on?”

“I guess I just can’t seem to calm down enough to actually poke myself. I just keep thinking I’m going to mess it up, and then I just spiral down from there.”

Logan paused, looking to the syringe on the table, then back at me. “Do you think they’d let you do these at home by yourself if it was likely that you’d make a mistake and end up hurt?”

“I guess not.”

“It’ll be okay, it always has in the past, hasn’t it?”

I nodded. It had always been okay in the past.

“Do you want me to do it for you?” Logan offered, and immediately I felt myself flinch.

“No! No no no no no no no no no. I can’t do that, I really can’t let you do that.” I felt myself starting to shake a little. It’d be worse if someone else did it. I couldn’t control it if it was another person doing it, and that wasn’t okay. It had to be me.

“That’s okay, is there something I can do to help you?”

I thought for a moment before saying, “Just talk to me, I guess. Stay close and just talk to me about anything but this.”

So he did, and slowly I started to feel my anxiety letting up, bit by bit. It was still bad, but having someone to talk to and help get my mind off of it made it go by easier. Before I’d even realized it I had picked up the syringe and was already injecting it.

I sat it back down, and Logan gave me a small smile, “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said.

“Not this time. You really didn’t have to come out here, I would’ve been okay.”

“Virgil, I wanted to. I know I don’t have to do these things for you, I just want to be here for you. I don’t want you to go through this alone. Why don’t we put on a movie or some music or something?”

“Why don’t we just lay in bed and you can tell me about your favorite constellations?”

“Are you sure you want to hear about that? I can kind of go on a tangent…”

“Logan, I want to. I like to hear you talk about things you love.”

Logan gave a small laugh, “I really can talk about you all day, can’t I?”


End file.
